More Articles

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan President Hamid Karzai said yesterday that his government still is
willing to start talks with the Taliban, easing concern that a brazen attack by the group on the
presidential palace on Tuesday might derail the country’s nascent peace process.

In a joint news conference with visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron in Kabul, Karzai
urged the militant group to return to the negotiating table. He dismissed the attack as “peanuts”
and said it will not deter his government from seeking peace.

The Taliban have indicated that they are willing to open peace talks with the United States and
the Afghan government, and they opened an office in Qatar a little more than a week ago for
possible negotiations.

But they have not renounced violence, and attacks have continued across Afghanistan.

Their ability to carry out well-planned and bold operations was driven home by Tuesday’s attack,
in which a sport-utility vehicle carrying four Taliban fighters made it into a highly secured area
near the gates of the palace. The four Taliban gunmen battled Afghan security forces for about an
hour before being killed; a second vehicle involved in the attack blew up at a checkpoint on the
way into the area.

Karzai said yesterday that moving ahead with talks is the only way to end nearly 12 years of
war.

“The attack that was organized near the presidential palace will not deter us from seeking
peace,” Karzai said. “We’ve had them killing the Afghan people, but still we ask for peace.”

Karzai downplayed the significance of the Taliban attack on the palace, in which all eight
militants and three security guards were killed.

“Comparatively speaking, this was quite an irrelevant attack,” he said. “We’re more concerned
when they attack Afghan civilians, we’re more concerned when they attack Afghan schools and
children — I wish they would spend all their time attacking the presidential palace and leave the
rest of the country alone.”

The Taliban have refused to negotiate with Karzai’s government in the past, saying that the U.S.
holds effective control in Afghanistan, but the Americans are hoping to bring the two sides
together.In a nod to Karzai’s concerns that Afghanistan might be squeezed out of the process,
Cameron assured him that “this peace process is for Afghanistan to determine, it must be
Afghan-owned, Afghan-led.”

He, too, urged the Taliban to open talks.

“I believe a window of opportunity is open, and I will urge all of those who renounce violence,
who respect the constitution, who want to have a voice in the future prosperity of this country, to
seize that opportunity,” Cameron said.